Gear up for a road trip

Gear up for a road trip – Stash these travel accessories in your car

The idea is to make your travels hassle free, smart and lot more fun. Next time you venture on a road trip, don’t forget to stock these essential travel accessories (pun-packed by us) for your awesome journey.

Swiss army knife

Let’s start with the basic and quintessential stuff. Let’s start with a Swiss Knife. Just store this one in your glove-compartment and let it be there, always. It comes handy with several road-trip roughs one might face. Uncorking a bottle, detangling luggage ropes or even chopping some salad for a quick-sandwich break, one never knows when this ‘offiziersmesser’, as it was originally called, might come handy. And what if you counter a highway goon? (Just saying…)

Solar power bank 

Trekkers and campaigners have to have this in their bag-packs. With hardly any electrical services in remote areas that an adventurer may head to, a portable solar charger may come handy. A nature-friendly gadget, it is a smart choice to keep. Its varied versions come in water (drizzle) proof and shock proof qualities and they usually have the option of charging through a plug point as well. So sunshine or no, keep it close (to your heart) and in your car.

Power inverter

This is an absolute essential for any long road trip. Just connect it to the cigarette lighter port for power and it is good to go. Some inverters produce so much as 140 Watts of AC power and come with electrical household outlets and USB ports. Usually, this kind is sufficient, but suit yourself and look for more options. Nevertheless, 140 Watts of power is enough for charging camera batteries, phones and iPods, all at once. A single unit serves well for two-three travellers if not an entire gang.

Driver organiser

There is a host of petty little but essential stuff that a traveller might carry on a voyage. Water-bottle, umbrella, tissues, medicines, snacks and other stuff that may be required then-and-now and hence cannot go into the luggage. It is for keeping these essentials handy, upfront and ready to u se that a driver organiser becomes an essential travel accessory. This shall also save a driver from the unnecessary yoga that he/she might have to do in order to scrounge for things rolled beneath the seats.

 Paper road atlas for the old school

Keeping aside the odds of the failure of electronic devices and crashing of a GPS device, a paper map or road atlas is recommended for the mere excitement it brings on a road trip. The old school charm of a sheet of layer spread on your car’s bonnet or on your laps, the fun of finding the right route from the criss-cross of coloured lines, marking the correct spots and the pit-stops with a coloured pen, the idea of keeping a paper map or atlas is interesting and functional. Some atlases also come with detailed travel guides…just in case the electronic gadgets decide to crash all at once!

Gentle reminders:  Keep yourself hydrated and ‘cool’ by stocking some water bottles and adorning a nice pair of sunglasses. Pump up the cool factor while still keeping it useful enough by “wearing a headband, for if you have long hair and decide to roll down the window…,” suggests Sumit Singh Jamwal, a road trip enthusiast and organiser. A real road-trip is not a music video’s shooting, so the road-trip buff’s tip will only come handy. “Also stock some energy bars as you can’t trust all road-side eating jaunts,” says Jamwal. Add to that some wet tissues, car cleaners, a torch and a sleeping bag-just in case you friend forgets to reserve a hotel room or you decide to ditch the luxuries and be adventurous! And of course do not forget a tubeless puncture tyre along with an air pump and pressure gauge; you want the journey to be keep going, after all.